Dr Agyajit Singh & Dr Ramneet Kaur
Psychological skills for human wellness

profile agyajit kaur Lemag May 2021

Download PDF Here

Live Encounters Magazine May 2021

Human WellnessIn this book there is a discussion about psychological skills that help human beings to lead happy, stress-free, and enjoyable life. These are the techniques that an individual must adopt treading the journey of life to have a happy and healthy life. Psychologists are trying to devise and teach these techniques to individuals through counseling and other methods. The purpose is to make them physically and mentally fit as well as emotionally and socially adjusted so that they can develop a well-rounded personality. Learning these mental training skills has become an essential part of modern life as life has been becoming intricate in the current era and stress is increasing in our lives. These skills help in coping with the stress of life, build positive energy, develop motivation, help in conflict resolution, etc., and make the life of an individual peaceful and more productive.

This book goes deep into the psychological skills training that constitutes training the mind. Psychological skills training includes learning diverse techniques such as coping with the stress of life, keeping calm under difficult situations, resilience, persistence, self-motivation, self-confidence, strong moral character, leadership, time management, and communication skills. Psychological skills also include stress management techniques, regulation of psychic energy, setting positive goals, emotional arousal control, applying mental imagery techniques, and many more. All these skills must be learned, acquired, and practiced in daily life, to make our life very effective and productive.

Psychological skills training

Psychological skills training is the systematic and organized practice of strategies, techniques, and methods designed to enhance an individual’s performance, by enhancing their psychological skills. This training includes teaching and learning behavioral or psychological skills, such as managing stress and leading tension-free life, sustaining focus, and handling emotions. These programs are conducted by a trained psychologist. Psychological skills training is a scientific training process that can help in maintaining a balanced and calm state of mind under adverse competitive and stressful situations and can help in enhancing the performance of an individual.

Psychological skills training is a kind of mental training for maintaining mental health, to keep both body and mind fit to lead a healthy and productive life. It helps an individual to be adjusted and to achieve success in daily life. It is meant for increasing enjoyment, and achieving greater self-satisfaction. Psychologists have devised some strategies and techniques which include behavior modification, cognitive techniques, rational emotive therapy, and goal setting skills, attention control, progressive relaxation exercises, and systematic desensitization psychotherapy. The way we need to regularly practice physical exercises to keep ourselves physically fit to maintain physical health, similarly we need to practice these psychological skills such as focusing and sustaining concentration, regulating arousal levels, enhancing confidence and maintaining motivation, etc., to keep ourselves to mentally fit and maintain mental health.

Psychological skills training involves providing training to individuals so that they can learn how to regulate their emotions under undesirable conditions and how to maintain their composure under adverse situations. During this kind of training, relaxation techniques are taught which help an individual in maintaining a balanced state of mind in the face of competition and can help in enhancing the performance of an individual. This kind of training is very useful in professional life where individuals face many challenges and competition. Different training programs can vary and have different skills to offer like communication, goal setting and planning, self-improvement, empathy, conflict resolution, and time management.

 Psychological training means learning, practicing, and developing mental skills. The purpose of this training is to inculcate good character and develop habits like sociability, emotional maturity, and making them smart. They also include social skills that help the individuals in getting along with each other. Developing social skills is very important to be effective and successful in professional life also. They help in developing job satisfaction among employees and improve their productivity.

For school students, developing social skills is an educative process that helps them to prepare for future life. These attributes include such as assertiveness, collaboration, creativity, dependability, diligence, friendliness, generosity, inquisitiveness, intellectual orientation, optimism, organization, self-discipline, and stability. These personality traits are pertinent which must be inculcated among the school children. Teachers play a pivotal role in developing these skills in school students as they are handling and encountering them in and outside the classroom in their schools.

Application of psychological skills

In the modern era of technological advancement, there is a pivotal need to learn and teach these skills. It is pertinent in the current times that everyone must possess psychological tools that make this modern life comfortable, pleasurable, and worth living. Modern life has become very intricate and is full of strains and stresses, anxiety, frustrations, maladjustments, disgust, and grief. Psychologists are trying their best to make human life happy, healthy, and prosperous by offering some strategies for coping up with the stress of daily life. Psychology is not only confined to study human behavior, but it also helps to create psychological well-being and human wellness with their research endeavors in the area of mental health and positive psychology.

In every human profession, the productivity of work is desired, and the efficiency of work can be increased by the knowledge of applied principles of human behavior. The information regarding behavioral skills and social competencies is the need of the hour. Of course, these skills are acquired through exposure to varied types of life experiences. Psychologists working in health psychology and positive psychology have devised certain techniques which are quite helpful in acquiring these skills and they are very helpful in our daily life. These skills include imagery, which is considered a master skill. Besides it, there are many other skills like stress management, emotional arousal regulation, managing psychic energy, and psycho-regulative techniques. Others in the list include motivation, goal setting, developing self-confidence, attention, and concentration skills which enhance effectiveness and bring success at every step in our life. Hence, we must learn and imbibe these skills to make them a part of our daily life.

Psychological skills are beneficial in all walks of life, both professional and personal life. These skills play an important role in the fields of education, health care, sports, organizations & marketing, police, and prison administration as well as in-home care activities. After getting training about these skills, they should be practiced in life. For example, imagery is useful for mental rehearsal; managing psychic energy gives more vigor and energy in initiating any activity in life. Of course, motivation is required in the completion of any task and its accomplishment depends upon the goal-setting skill which is also related to the fulfillment of our objectives and aims of our chalk-out program as well as achieving the pursuit of excellence.

After studying all the relevant psychological skills which are very important for our modern lifestyle, it is suggested that psychologists should conduct more research work on these skills to come out with empirical findings to know the efficacy of these skills to reach a logical conclusion. They should also think of many more behavioral skills and concepts which are required in our present time; especially in these days of crisis of coronavirus disease, (COVID- 19) when people are going through bad days of isolation and mental pain. All those who have become victim of this disease must learn these psychological skills and apply them in their regular routine life to combat this illness. Psychologists can play a significant role in ameliorating the effects of this disease by helping people to manage stress and control anxiety and to face disappointments and frustrations boldly. They should come out with practical guidelines on how to live with it and defeat the outcome of this disease. They should suggest some mental exercises for making their life comfortable and pleasurable, e.g., breathing and relaxation exercises, self-talk, visualization, meditation, and yoga. They should organize short-term workshops and training programs for teaching some of these skills, according to the nature of the problem which the people are facing.

These days, training in psychological skills has attracted the attention of psychologists, behavioral scientists, and educational administrators. Much research work in this area has started now by the researchers to find out the new parameters of psychological skills in the field of positive psychology.

Our mind plays a seminal role in our life. Our life is the reflection seen through the eyes of our mind. Our eyes do not see what our mind does not know. Our mind governs our life. The strength of mind is essential for the success in all spheres of life. This book portrays the significance of psychological skills training in increasing the strength of mind and how it can contribute to human wellness which is the need of the hour.

Psychological Skills Training for Human Wellness
Agya Jit SinghRamneet Kaur
SAGE India, January 2021, Rs 1,295 (Hardcover), 328 pages, 9789353886684
Available to purchase online at https://stealadeal.sagepub.in/psychological-skills-training-for-human-wellness-agya-jit-singh-9789353886684.html

Dr. Agyajit Singh retired as Head, Department of Psychology, Punjabi University, Patiala (Punjab) after serving it for 30 years in the Department of Education and Psychology. He holds the Master degrees in Psychology and Education; with M.Litt in Educational Psychology and PhD in Sports Psychology

Dr. Ramneet Kaur has a PhD in Biotechnology with postdoctoral research training from Harvard Medical School, Boston and Emory University, Atlanta USA in the field of cancer biology. Currently she is a faculty in the biology department at University of North Georgia, USA. She also has an academic position at Mercer University, Atlanta and University of New England, Maine. Her research is in the field of triple negative breast cancer. She has published various research papers in high impact factor scientific journals in the field of cancer. She has also done interdisciplinary work and is a coauthor of three psychology books.


© Agyajit Singh/Ramneet Kaur